Davie cop guilty of molesting family member

Davie police officer Stephen Olenchak was found guilty of sexual battery Friday, four years after being arrested and charged with drugging a young family member before sexually assaulting her, with his wife and 4-year-old son asleep nearby in the same bed.

Stephen Olenchak, 38, remained stonefaced as a court deputy placed him in handcuffs. He could be sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison for the second-degree felony.

"I'm just happy the victim was able to get her day in court and face the accused," said Assistant State Attorney Neva Smith, who tried the case with Victoria Watson. "Justice was served. We are happy with the verdict. It was fair."

Olenchak, who testified during trial that the woman seduced him, plans to appeal.

"I'm very disappointed in the verdict," defense attorney Jim Lewis said outside the courtroom. "I don't understand how it could be sexual battery if they didn't find she'd been drugged. There was no resistance put up. We're going to appeal. Hopefully this won't be the end of it."

Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson set sentencing for May 17 at 1:30 p.m.

During trial, the woman told jurors she tried to push Olenchak away, but could not move or even call out for help. She is not being named by the Sun Sentinel because of the nature of the crime.

Afraid to break up the family, she waited three days to tell Olenchak's wife.

Olenchak lied on the stand when he professed his innocence, Smith said during closing arguments.

"You don't have his DNA," she told jurors. "You have something better. You have the words from his soul, his mind, his psyche."

Smith asked them to consider a recorded phone call that showed "the real Stephen Olenchak."

The 13-minute conversation between Olenchak, the victim and his wife, Angela, was recorded by Davie police an hour before his arrest on March 26, 2009.

In the call, Olenchak breaks down into sobs when the woman, then 19, asks whether he loves her.

"I'm so sorry this happened," he tells her. "I'm so sorry I did this to you. ... I don't want to ruin our family. I don't want to ruin you. ... Oh, my God. Oh, my God, I hate that I did this. "

He promises to spend the rest of his life making it up to her.

When she asks whether she should tell anyone, he tells her to keep quiet.

"Don't tell. You don't tell anybody. Nobody has to know."

Jurors deliberated for more than nine hours over two days before delivering a verdict shortly before noon on Friday.

The jurors, four men and two women, declined to comment.

During trial, they heard the sordid details of that night on March 22, 2009, when prosecutors say Olenchak crossed the line and sexually assaulted the woman after drugging both her and wife Angela Olenchak.

Olenchak took the stand this week, telling jurors the woman moved his hand to her genital region while he slept. When he woke up and realized where his hand was, he got "the hell out of that bed," he testified.

Blood and urine tests of the victim taken four days after the incident came back negative for drugs.

Lewis told jurors the fact that Olenchak allowed the woman to stay in bed may have been inappropriate and dysfunctional, but it was not sexual battery.

"Blame him absolutely for using poor judgment," Lewis said. "But that's a far cry from convicting him of sexual assault on a helpless victim."

Lewis said the state didn't have proof of an assault.

"You can speculate on what happened," Lewis told jurors. "But you can't base a verdict on speculation."

When Olenchak turned down a plea deal last year, prosecutors upgraded the charge to sexual battery on a helpless victim. The first-degree felony could have landed Olenchak in prison for up to 30 years.

Olenchak's first trial ended in a mistrial in 2010 when a juror brought her own research materials to the jury room.

In this trial, the judge repeatedly reminded jurors not to read newspapers, watch TV or do their own research on the Internet.

Olenchak was suspended without pay shortly after Davie police arrested him in March 2009. After learning of the verdict, a police spokesman said Olenchak would be terminated.

Lewis predicted his client would get 30 months in prison, much less than the 15-year maximum.